Page 50 of Betray Me
“Thank you,” I whisper against his shirt.
“For what?”
“For seeing something in me worth saving.”
His arms tighten around me. “Belle, you saved yourself. You made the choice to walk into that federal building, to wear the wire, to risk everything for justice. That wasn’t me or David Stone or anyone else. That was you.”
The words hit differently than they would have even hours ago. Before watching my parents’ arrest, before seeing the tangible proof that their empire had fallen, I might’ve argued with him. Insisted that I was just protecting myself, choosing the least bad option in an impossible situation.
But sitting here in the wreckage of everything I once thought defined me, I realize he might be right. At some point during this nightmare, I stopped being Richard Gallagher’s daughter and started being something else. Someone who could choose right over safety, truth over protection, justice over family loyalty.
It’s terrifying, exhilarating, and completely foreign.
“I’m scared,” I admit.
“Of what?”
“Of everything. Of being free. Of having to figure out who I am without someone else telling me. Of the possibility that I might truly be happy someday.” I pause, gathering courage for the next admission. “Of losing you.”
Max pulls back to look at me, his dark eyes intense. “You’re not going to lose me.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I’m not going anywhere.” His hand cups my cheek, thumb brushing away a tear I didn’t realize had fallen. “Whatever comes next, whatever we have to face, we’re facing it together.”
The promise in his voice, the absolute certainty, makes something crack open in my chest. Not the painful crack of breaking, but the necessary crack of something that’s been locked away too long finally being allowed to breathe.
For the first time in my life, I want to believe in tomorrow. Want to believe that two broken people can build something beautiful from the wreckage of their pasts.
“Max,” I whisper his name like a prayer.
He responds by lowering his mouth to mine, and the kiss is different from the desperate, panic-driven attempts at connection we’ve shared before. This is soft, tentative, asking permission instead of demanding submission. It tastes like hope and possibility and the radical idea that I might be worthy of gentleness.
When we break apart, I’m breathless for entirely different reasons.
“Belle,” he says, and the way he speaks my name makes it sound like something precious. “Are you sure?”
I know what he’s asking. Not just about tonight, about taking this step, but about everything. About trusting him with the broken pieces of myself. About believing that intimacy doesn’t have to be another form of transaction or manipulation.
“I’m sure,” I tell him, and for the first time in my life, I mean it completely.
He lifts me into his arms and carries me toward the bedroom, like something out of a fairy tale. Except there’s nothing princely about him, nothing naïvely romantic or unearned. We’ve survived hell, broken each other, and been broken by each other, and somehow still found our way back.
His lips find mine as he lays me gently on the sheets, still rumpled from sleep. The combination of tenderness and raw, simmering heat makes my pulse race. He could devour me whole tonight, and I’d thank him for it. He could use my body to break me open, and I’d let him.
But that’s not what tonight is about. Tonight isn’t about trauma or domination. It’s not about debts or debts paid. It’s not about survival. It’s not even about sex.
It’s about the possibility of something more. About wanting and choosing and trusting instead of manipulating. About giving something freely instead of selling it on the block.
About being seen and heard and touched. Not as an asset. Not as a pretty ornament. Not as a weapon. But just as Belle—human, flawed, so terrified and hopeful and desperate for this man that my entire body trembles with it.
“Are you sure?” he whispers again, pausing with his hands on the buttons of his shirt.
“Just take off the damn clothes.”
Laughter sparks in his eyes, the flash of mischief I recognize from when we first met at Shark Bay. That humor is unexpected, so different from the solemn, often sad intensity I’ve come to expect. My breath catches, stolen by the sudden possibility that tonight could be a revelation in more ways than one.
He obliges, his fingers unfastening the buttons one by one until his shirt hangs loose, revealing planes of toned muscle and golden skin. I know men like Max. Know the work and time that went into earning that strength, into sculpting the body that makes others burn. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, nothing that should move me or spark heat in my belly.
